Habit
by sapientia paucis
Summary: Series of drabbles. Habits can be broken. SxS. Twisted and delightful.
1. Phone call

Disclaimer: Nothing's mine.

**Habit**

My life is supremely uninteresting: I work and eat and sleep. When I'm not too tired, I read. Most days, I end up sprawled on the couch in my living room. It's a habit.

The phone rings and I reach to answer it, unthinking. It's a habit.

"Sumeragi desu," I say. The moment the words spill out, I know who it is; I can feel his hunter's smile through the telephone wire.

"Hello, Subaru-kun," he replies. His smile widens, and I slam the receiver into its cradle. If the phone rings again, I won't pick up. Habits can be broken.


	2. Dialtone

Disclaimer: Nothing's mine.

Author's Note: Because I got such nice reviews from Sakurazuka-chan and Silver Salamander, I've decided to make this a series of interconnected drabbles. Enjoy!

**Habit; 2  
**

There's a click and then the nothingness of a dial tone. My smile slips a little—he hung up on me!—but I regain my composure without trouble. I realise he's decided to play a game, and I will join him.

Not, of course, because I care. I don't care. I never have, and I never will. However, he's grown to be… a habit. Like smoking, I think, as I tap ashes off my cigarette. Just as I could quit smoking if I wanted to, I could quit playing with him.

I won't, though, because both are such pleasant habits.


	3. Watching

Disclaimer: Still not mine. Can I stop with these already?

Author's Note: No idea when the hell this is set. It's definitely post Tokyo Babylon, but not by long. Glomps and cookies (don't worry, I didn't bake them) to all my lovely reviewers!

**Habit; 3**

I watch him. He knows, and he does nothing to stop it. It means he doesn't mind and that he's too weak to force me away.

I smile slightly. Emotions are perplexing, and I'm profoundly glad not to have them. To have won the Bet cleanly.

I watch him light a cigarette. I wonder why he smokes… is he emulating me? He has a mobile phone now—bought it last week—so I dial the number. I let the phone ring three times before hanging up and looking down at him from my rooftop vantage point.

He lights another cigarette.


	4. Waiting

Author's Note: Two in one day! Britannia triumphant! I have APs this week (tomorrow morning included ), so I might not be updating. However, given my grand aversion to all work-like activites, I'll probably use this as a means of procrastination.

**Habit; 4**

I wait. I know he's watching me, but I cannot summon enough energy to care. If Hokuto-chan was here… no. I shake my head. I force myself to say it.

"She's dead."

Nothing I can do will bring her back, but I can't help but think about it. I never could; I always reflect on my failures.

"She's dead."

My phone rings. I know it's he, and I ignore the call. Even if I can't stop thinking about what I've done wrong, I can break my bad habits.

Like smoking, he's just a bad habit, and I can break both.


	5. Acquiesce

Author's Note: Took my first AP today, and I've got another this Friday. Then I'll be free! Also, I've figured out the semi-plot of this... oh man. I can't wait to write some of the upcoming pieces!

**Habit; 5**

He doesn't always call, and I don't know if he always watches. It's been a week since I last sensed him near me.

The phone rings. I'm sure it's him, and I swear to myself that I won't pick up.

Second ring. I rein myself in and refuse to answer.

Third ring. I know he'll hang up after this, and my self-control shatters.

"Konnichi wa, Seishirou-san," I say softly, knowing that the two of us are playing a game, and I've just lost another round, yielded once again.

"Subaru-kun, would you like dinner?"

For the first time, I say yes.


	6. Preparation

Author's Note: Sei-chan is creepy! Therefore, I love writing him. Indeed. I have nothing to say.

**Habit; 6**

It amuses and puzzles me that he replied in the affirmative, but it does not surprise me. After all, he's made a habit of feeling and lets emotions drive him. It's weak and it's deplorable, but I'm temporarily entertained. That's all that matters.

I consider buying flowers as I walk; it would throw him off. Still, it might be more unnerving to show up empty handed. I'm not sure why I keep thinking of this. It shouldn't matter. I shouldn't care.

This doesn't mean a damned thing. Not one. I don't care in the least.

I knock on his door.


	7. Favoured

Author's Note: Ahahaha, I love this story! I love that the two of them are fucking crazy! And, of course, I love all of my reviewers! Especially Mel-chan, who's sitting behind me. Next part coming soon; it's half done. And my APs are all over... I'm free!Story now.

**Habit; 7**

I'm not ready for him to be here; I'm not ready to look into his mismatched eyes; I'm not ready to smile falsely at that masked face; I'm not ready to deal in lies.

He's standing on the other side of the door, and I'm sure his shiki is somewhere nearby. It doesn't really bother me: he always watches.

But that doesn't mean I'm ready for him to be here. I inhale and exhale, hiding in a cloud of nerve-induced smoke. I know I'll open the door, and I know how this evening will end.

I'm just his favourite toy.


	8. Minuet

Author's Note: Thank you, Sakurazuka-chan, for your bazillions of awesome reviews!

**Habit; 8**

He smells of soap and cigarettes when he greets me. With a wan smile, he steps left and lets me into the apartment silently. Beautiful as the fairest, rarest doll with jewels for eyes, he's perfect.

He is mine, and mine alone. If he's to break, I'll be the one who shatters him. Satisfied, I reach out, caress his cheek. He flinches… but not quickly enough.

I smirk and he steps back; it's just like we're dancing. I wonder idly whether it's a tango or a waltz. I take hold of his arm, for we're dance partners, and it's proper.


	9. Breathe

Author's Note: Just for the record, this is what I did in math class today. Paying attention is both overrated and unnecessary.

**Habit; 9**

We sit at the table, and I watched as reflected flames dance between the black frames of his shiny black sunglasses.

"You know, Seishirou-san, it's considered impolite to wear sunglasses indoors."

He smiles at me over a glass of red wine; I don't know what he's thinking; and though half of me has no desire to find out, the other is irrepressibly curious.

I exhale and wish the restaurant allowed smoking, but it doesn't, so I take a sip of my own wine.

We eat and I breathe and we talk and he smiles and suddenly it's time to pay.


	10. Because

Author's Note: I've started messing with structure, narrative voice, tone, perspective, and all the like, simultaneously shifting grammatical juxtaposition (slowly, of course) so that the clauses are more haphazard. Do you notice and appreciate this stuff? satisfy my curiosity and answer that, if you'd be so kind. Because these are just snippets, there's much innuendo to be had here, and it makes me happy in my heart. Plus, the story's getting crazier. OK, I need to shut up now...

**Habit; 10**

I'd like him to walk me home just because. Because he wants to.

Because he lets himself want.

Sometimes—his hand is so distracting, but I'm not thinking about it—I assume things about him. I shouldn't; I have no right. I know he considers me "pretty", but I'm equally aware that I'm only a thing.

But it doesn't matter. I don't matter, and that doesn't matter either.

If I can't be a person to him—he's the only one about whom I give a damn, and I've learned it hurts to love—then I'm content to be his toy.


	11. Shatter

Author's Note: I've been anticipating this piece for a long time, but once I started writing it, I realised I couldn't mould the words into the shape I most desired. Therefore, I'm highly disappointed with this chapter. Ah, well; such is life.

**Habit; 11**

They are—we are—one; there is no division. Push and pull, move, respond. Do not think.

.shatter.

I break him and he breaks me because we are one; there is no division.

.shatter.

At times like these, they are truly two halves of a whole, and there is no way—none at all—to separate us. To do so would be to sever something sacred, beautiful; it would destroy both of them.

.shatter.

He is I. I am he. We are they; there is no division.

.shatter.

By dawn, there will be two, but now there is only one.


	12. Shards

Author's Note: I've been run down, so I'll be updating sporadically, and the chapters may be a bit more twisted. Also, I'm looking for a beta. If you're interested, contact me via AIM; I'm sapientia paucis.

**Habit; 12**

He always breaks; he lets me set a bomb within him. When he's on the verge of explosion, his eyes close and open darker, colder. He still makes no move to stop me, and I proceed, and he falls to pieces.

What beautiful shards he produces. They're scented of cigarettes—"you smoke too much"—and shampoo; it's a paradoxical juxtaposition.

I always break him; he wants me to. I know that he could stop me easily but won't. He'll merely open and close his eyes.

Before I go, I take his last pack of cigarettes and leave behind a lighter.


	13. Cold

Author's Note: I'm a bad author-person insofar as I've not updated in ages. Throw non-staining tomatoes at me.

**Habit; 13  
**

He rises from a cold bed, heads for the bathroom. Ten minutes in the too-hot shower: both a penitential scalding and temporary reprieve from the too-cold world. And yet, though the colour of his skin might serve as evidence to the contrary, he can barely feel the warmth. Inside, at his very core, he's chilled, and he wishes every damned day that it wasn't so.

He isn't asking for a fire; those are far too hot, far too dangerous. Too passionate: they melt the ice necessary for survival. They burn and, long since used to the cold, he'd rather freeze.


	14. Changed

Author's Note: They're so fun! I forgot how fun it is to play with them! Whee!

**Habit; 14  
**

So, I hear it's winter in his heart. I don't care or anything, but it's interesting. From a strictly psychological standpoint, of course.

Nothing looks different from the distance; he's the same when I trail him in the crowded city. Cigarette, distinctive white coats, my lighter… nothing looks unusual or out of place. Not when I'm far away.

But up close everything changes, and he's tired, and snappy, and always on the verge of shattering, and just no fun at all. It displeases me, but what am I to do?

You know it doesn't matter to me if he's cold.


	15. Cry

Authoer's Note: Fishie gup gup. These are fun, but I don't think they're as good as they used to be... maybe the characterisation is off. I don't know. Tell me what you think, please.

**Habit; 15**

It happened a few months ago: we were sitting in my apartment playing mind games. As always, he had the upper hand.

"You're allowed to cry," he said.

I don't know. It's not that I can't cry or anything so stereotypical; I've got working tear ducts and everything. Conversely, they're not about to wear out from overuse.

I just don't cry.

Maybe it's because I have nothing to cry about. He doesn't care about me, and I shouldn't care about him, and the situation is what it is. It's a matter of possession and of worth, and that's hardly sad.


	16. Absolved

Author's Note: I wrote this late at night. I wish I'd had a chance to stick one of the recurrent symbols/images/themes in, but I didn't, and I'm not sure if anyone looks for them but me. So, yeah. If you do, that'd be really cool, and it'd be doubly cool if you told me.

**Habit; 16  
**

Sometimes, I wish I hadn't met him. Really, my entire existence would be better that way.

It's logical to wish that I had avoided that stupid Tree, that there hadn't been a Bet, that my sister was still alive, that I wasn't forced into the static hypocrisy of my present life.

If all of that is logical, why can't I see it? Logic is good, it's reasonable, it can be measured. It's important if one wishes to keep sane.

I must be crazy, then. Surely it's simple: he broke me and now I'm crazy.

If I blame him, I'm absolved.


	17. Contrast

Author's Note: I actually wrote this during a workshop because I have them nearly every day and because I'm simply magical. In case you're curious, by the way, I've discovered the cure for chatty girls, and it's very simple. Discman (unless you have an iPod, which I... don't), in-ear headphones, Bach. I really love Bach. And I'm really gonna stop before this author's note overpowers the piece.

**Habit; 17**

I have always admired style and beauty. Form, shape, line, and colour.

Colour.

White: skin, roses, calla lilies, coats.

Black: hair, leather couches, ink, clothing.

Red: blood, sheets, lines, cigarette butts.

Green: eyes, glass vases, flower stems, grass.

Life. Death.

Life. Death.

Death. Life.

Life. Death.

Every coin has two sides, and every coin can be flipped. Heads or tails? You choose. We'll bet on it, yes. I assure you: it will be a beautiful Bet and we'll have a good time, and it'll entertain us both.

Think of the new world I can show you.

So, heads or tails?


	18. Feel

Author's Note: This one was nicer when I conceptualised it.

**Habit; 18  
**

Maybe it seems otherwise, but I do feel. I need like everyone else; I want; I desire. Do I want what's "right", "good", "normal"? Maybe not.

I heard an American song on the radio, and the words struck a chord: "I am human and I need to be loved… just like everyone else does."

Yes. There are questions of worth. Yes. There is self-loathing. But that, you see, implies emotion, and I am not numb. I wish I was…things would be far simpler if I was, if I could just shut down, close myself off.

But then… I'd be him.


	19. Admiration I

Author's Note: I heart Bach. Seriously. And I swear my left hand has gotten a thousand times more calloused since I started playing his stuff. Just in case you were curious... or something.

**Habit; 19**

Bach's partitas for cello: melancholy, beautiful. Haunting.

His concertos for violin: vibrant, elegant. Soaring.

I've always admired classical musicians for their dedication to their art. I love to shake their strong, calloused hands after concerts, and I love to hear their heartstrings snap at midnight.

It's sad to steal such loveliness from the world, to know that their expressive fingers will never fly nimbly across strings again, that their beloved instruments will grow dusty and cold. That their seats in the orchestra will be filled by some stranger, or, maybe, a rival.

Still… that final snap is the loveliest song.


	20. Admiration II

I said before that I admire classical musicians, and I'm extending that admiration to dancers. They are strength, and grace, and beauty—unshatterable crystal figurines, elegant lines, chiselled forms.

I wonder if Hokuto ever danced.

She had the body for it: long legs, narrow waist. She wasn't ungraceful, and I remember her outrageous tutus. I can picture her poised in fifth position, standing on stage and waiting for the red curtain to rise, to reveal her to a faceless audience. I can hear her pointe shoes hitting a studio floor as she lands her jumps, setting her feet down toe-ball-heel. 


	21. Frozen spring

Author's Note: New kinds of creepy! Also, not to ostracise those with political views divergent from my own... but Sandra Day O'Connor resigned (from the Supreme Court) today. Le doom!

**Habit; 21**

Springtime in Kyoto: sakura, sunlight. Warm, green—koi ponds wide awake, stripped at last of their white frosting. Little breezes that chill him, planting ice where bone marrow belongs. All he sees are the sakura—pink petals in the air, picked up by the stronger gusts—mabaroshi? Is He coming?

Springtime in Kyoto: family, ritual, long-standing traditions. He participates in the rituals, nods when he ought to—white faced paper doll in matching robes. The breeze would rip him into shreds if not for his icy core. Frozen boy, smoking cigarettes in a blooming garden, dead to everyone save Him.


	22. Someone

**Habit; 22**

He sips green tea in his grandmother's old-fashioned kitchen and wishes to all the gods he can name that he was back in Tokyo, anonymous, a chain-smoking nobody. He empties his mug and, though his uncle raises his eyebrows in disapproval, uses Seishirou-san's lighter on yet another cigarette. The pentacles on his hands flash for half a second, but their glow vanishes quickly. However brief this interlude, he is still thankful that he forgot to have the sleeves on his coat tailored. He doesn't want to be noticed by anyone, prying relatives in particular. It's hard to lie to them.


	23. Locked

**Habit; 23**

He unlocks the apartment door. Shoes off, placed neatly beside the coat rack. Bag—it's too small—down, placed next to the couch. He returns to the door, shuts it. I hear the lock grating as the internal mechanism fastens itself.

I could enter any number of ways. I choose to knock. I know that he'll know it's me, and he does, and he unlatches—scraping metal bits on the inside—the door, and if I didn't know better, I'd say he was on the verge of collapse.

And I can't help but smirk as he steps aside quite politely.


	24. Afternoon

Author's note: Apologies for my extremely long hiatus. I don't know when I'll next be updating, though I expect that I'll churn a few more pieces out in the near future.

**Habit; 24**

"You know," I say one afternoon, "if it's a bad habit, you might well have it for life."

Sprawled on my bed under a thin sheet, he continues to smoke in sullen silence. The ceiling fan rattles overhead, and I reach across him; the cigarettes are on the bureau. I take one and flick his lighter, calling a small butane flame into existence.

The air grows heavy, fume-laden. Summer sunlight, trickling in from a gap in the curtains, cuts a pale clean swath through our haze. I tap ash into a sleek glass tray.

We smoke, choking on our silence.


	25. Suffocate

**Habit; 25**

It is suffocating not to speak, but I hold my tongue. Self control.

I inhale exhale inhale exhale, smoking for lack of anything better to do and because the little puffs of toxic air mean I'm still breathing. The room is quiet and still, weighed down by hatred and love and sex and more emotions than I'll ever be able to name.

Confused as I may be, I ask no questions. I keep my silence because it's my solemn duty to do so. I know he doesn't care one way or the other, but I don't want to inconvenience him.


	26. Feud

Author's note: I reference Ovid's _Pyramus and Thisbe_, Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_, and J.R.R. Tolkien's _The Two Towers_ in here. Go me.

**Habit; 26**

The lovers do not meet again for weeks, though the heads of their warring families do. The chief difference between the two of them and characters in a tragedy—by Ovid, or by Shakespeare—is that they are both the individuals and the houses. Each is forced into dual, conflicting roles.

I know; he knows.

He knows; I know.

They are both perceptive, and they are both frail, and they are both stern as steel. Neither can, or will, shatter the other without consent.

So I give him my permission once.

And with his express permission, I tear him apart.


	27. Power

Author's Note: I apologise, as usual for the delay. Also, I did all of zero research, so I can't testify in favour of this bit's veracity; here's to hoping there are alcohol-related New Years celebrations in Japan.

**Habit; 27**

Neither of us drinks on New Years, though we are hardly not-drinking together. That would be too cordial, too normal.

No, instead, I sit at home with my living room curtains courteously open so he can watch with greater ease. Out of the corner of my eye, at fifteen minutes to midnight, I notice his coat is blowing in the ever-heavier wind; I almost invite him in.

I couldn't do that, couldn't reverse the power roles. He always sets the rules, and I always obey, and it could never be otherwise. It all boils down to an issue of possession.


	28. Recreation

**Habit; 28**

New year, new snow, new start. It's the mythos of revival, which stretched America to the Pacific, which stretched me past frustration. I try, you know, I fucking try. And it doesn't fucking work. I am, from all angles, immeasurably and unutterably screwed up. It's my own fault (so I never fought it, and it's too late now).

No, really, it is. Want to see? Yeah, okay, okay, let's play in the new snow.

First, find a park. Too cold. back home, back inside for a cigarette. No stopping those. Inhale, exhale. Don't even bother to sit near a window.


	29. Retrospective

**Habit; 29**

In the storybooks I never read as a child, things begin once upon a time and end happily ever after. Still, because I hardly heard those stories in my youth, how was I to know? I was raised in reality, in the tangible world of blood and flower petals, so it was inevitable that I would grow up to value the material. There is, of course, a mystical element to what I do, but it can be explained by tradition and a vital need for balance, and it is neither silly nor futile. It is nothing at all like hope.


	30. Sunrise

**Habit; 30**

I get home from a job. Leaving my shoes by the door and shrugging my coat onto the couch, I shuffle to the bedroom.

It's early when I wake up, and it's dark (isn't it always darkest before sunrise?). I remember that I wanted tea earlier. So I make tea. Then I have tea.

It's very early still, though the sky is getting lighter.

The tea is very nice, and I wonder if I have any fruit in the house. I wonder when I last shopped for groceries. I cannot remember. I drink my tea, and the sun also rises.


	31. Lilacs I

Author's Note: Quotation at the start is from T. S. Eliot's "Portrait of a Lady".

**Habit; 31**

"Now that lilacs are in bloom / She has a bowl of lilacs in her room," I read, and it gives me an idea. I know enough about flowers that I could pull it off. I just need to think it through; I just need to work out the details. I know enough about flowers, and what I don't know I can research. I have the time and the knowledge and the dedication. It's not obsession, because, see, it's dedication. I mean, obsession would have me across Tokyo right now, lurking outside someone's apartment, but I'm at home reading Eliot.


	32. Silence

**Habit; 32**

Sometimes, well, sometimes, he would like to scream. And not just scream a little, no, he would like to scream away the past few years of his life, or, better, all of them. He will not scream, of course; he will never scream. He will never make a noise. Grace under pressure.

And he is too world-weary to think it will do anything for him to cry out. There is no one to help him. Who's to say that he wants a saviour anyway? No, he is too adult for heroes. It's cold comfort to be an adult in adolescence.


	33. Worth

Author's Note: First and last lines of the second paragraph are from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.

**Habit; 33**

I live from day to day, routinely, in utter accordance with the habits I've cultivated. Oh, sure, I suppose it's not a habit to avoid—no, never mind. Doesn't matter. I'd like to—no, never mind that either. Doesn't matter. Why would it? I mean, worthless thoughts from a worthless being.

For you in my respect are all the world, I think. You are out there, watching, and it is you who matters. So what if I get lonely? I conclude: then how can it be said I am alone when all the world is here to look on me?


	34. Subsistence I

**Habit; 34**

He is exacting in everything he does, applying himself rather carefully as to succeed with minimal exertion. Off duty, he used to read a bit, but he wasn't so painstakingly efficient back then. Now, he's too listless to read, or to do anything, really, save subsist. He'll never kill himself, of course; he will continue to subsist in that annoying, exacting way of his. It's as though he's waiting for something into which he might pour all the energy he's saved, though how you save energy when you barely eat escapes me. Still, it's typical enough of him to try.


	35. Subsistence II

**habit; 35**

Making rice is easy: water in pot, rice into water, pot onto stove, let stand until all the water's been absorbed. I hear it's even easier with a rice cooker, not that I care enough to buy one.

Every couple of days, I make rice, and every couple of weeks, when it's time to buy more rice, I get vegetables. Hokuto would have a fit about it, but Hokuto's dead now, isn't she? Rice is enough to keep me alive, and life is complicated. It's pleasant for rice to be simple.

Then Seishirou-san shows up at my door, holding lilacs.


	36. Rice

**Habit; 36**

"I brought you flowers, Subaru-kun."

He turns to the stove.

"No thank you for the gift? You're losing your manners."

"I burned the rice," he says.

"And?"

"I don't usually burn the rice. I shouldn't burn the rice."

I wonder, briefly, whether rice means something to him. I remember it's all he eats, though I pretend not to know. "And?"

More silence.

"Okay, let me guess. It was the only food in the house."

He shrugs.

"You know, you can't sustain yourself on rice alone."

"It works."

"Come on, I'll buy you dinner."

He shrugs again and leaves the stove.


	37. Lilacs II

Author's Note: The line about hyacinths is from Eliot's "The Waste Land".

**Habit; 37**

The cardinal rule in dealing with Seishirou-san is this: don't care. Expect the unexpected and then move on without making a fuss. Everything is cleaner that way.

You gave me hyacinths first a year ago, I think, setting the lilacs in the sink. He asks if I'll put them in a bowl later, and I promise to. I intend to break the promise and to throw the flowers out, though I don't even hint at it.

He offers me dinner, and I accept, not because I'm hungry but because he'll fuck me afterwards. Don't care, I remind myself. Don't care.


End file.
